Murray dumped out in Doha

Andy Murray's preparations for the Australian Open took a hit as he was knocked out of the ExxonMobil Open by Florian Mayer in his fourth match since returning from back surgery.

Mayer won 3-6 6-4 6-2 in Doha, with Murray taking just 3 of the last 16 games having gone a set and 3-0 up.

Doubles despair

Andy Murray also saw his attempt to gain some extra time on court cut short with a quarter-final exit in the doubles tournament alongside Serbia's Nenad Zimonjic.

Facing the No. 1 seeds Alexander Peya and Bruno Soares, Murray and Zimonjic lost 7-6(5) 6-4 in just short of an hour and a half. They had led the second set 3-0 before Murray was broken en route to making it 3-3, before Peya and Soares pulled clear.

Murray broke in the fifth game of the first set and then closed it out with another break as he looked to be cruising towards victory.

And when Murray reeled off the opening three games of the second set the match seemed all but over. However Mayer instigated a remarkable turnaround, making it 3-1 by holding serve and then breaking Murray after the Scot failed to land any of his five first serves in the fifth game. Mayer then held to tie the set at 3-3, and after missing break points finally took his chance to win a fourth successive game.

Mayer made it 5-3 before Murray stopped the rot, however the German held serve to tie the match.

Mayer then broke Murray in the first game of the deciding set, and again for 5-2 before he served out the match.

Elsewhere, Rafael Nadal needed three sets to see off Tobias Kamke, winning 6-3 6-7(3) 6-3, but David Ferrer also exited at the second round stage.

Nadal broke Kamke in the second game of the first set before going on to close it out. The Spaniard almost repeated the trick at the start of the second set, but Kamke survived several break points to hold. Kamke then broke for 3-1 and held serve, as did Nadal, who then broke back.

The second set went to a tie breaker and it was Kamke who took it, but Nadal claimed the decider to move through to the quarter-finals.

Ferrer, the No. 2 seed, fell to a straight sets defeat by Daniel Brands
of Germany, losing 7-5 6-4 in an hour and 15 minutes.